Santa Willie gets star treatment in Texas Monthly

‘Amazing, nearly 120,000 Texans have already signed the petition to leave the union!” says one guy.

“And here’s another group that’s petitioning the government to expel Texas from the union...,” says another guy.

“Hell, I’d sign that one. What’s the group?” asks the first guy.

“Forget the Alamo,” answers the last guy.

This is men talking in my pal Gary Trudeau’s comic strip “Doonesbury.” Then, there is Gail Collins’ book, written right before the election, titled “As Texas Goes...” These people have the red state right down to its tiny blue cuticles.

Where is Ann Richards when we still need her?

Well, on March 7, the actress Holland Taylor, famous as the nymphomaniac mother in TV’s “Two and a Half Men,” opens as “Ann” at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center. I saw this play, which Holland wrote, in Washington at the Kennedy Center. It’s a knockout!

More on Texas, which is almost as big, if not quite as spiritual, as Alaska; Texas is such a conservative place that people tend to forget that its leading all-time celebrity is liberal to the max.

And that person is Santa Claus. Or, as Texas Monthly magazine reports, a country music legend — a man called Willie Nelson.

Willie is Santa, according to thousands of his fans who are reading this month what Willie has to say about getting older, getting busted for possession of marijuana, getting along with religious conservatives such as Pat Robertson and getting mistaken for Santa.

When Texans think of Santa, they think of him in the guise of Willie who even looks like the old man from the North Pole. Willie even has a white beard. He has a guitar that he calls “Trigger.” He is almost 80 years old (the same age I presume Santa uses, having lied about his age.)

I, personally, am willing to take Willie Nelson as Santa Claus — a Santa who loves independent young people, a Santa who is like a god in the country music world, and a Santa who is naughty but nice!

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My favorite TV commercial — and there are few of those these days — is the one where Santa observes a line of his Mercedes. The white Mercedes drive out under a sign that reads “NICE,” the red ones drive out under a sign that reads “NAUGHTY.”